


my coat pockets, full of stones

by domeric_bolton



Category: X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom
Genre: Cuddling, Domestic, M/M, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-02
Updated: 2014-12-02
Packaged: 2018-02-27 20:27:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2705636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/domeric_bolton/pseuds/domeric_bolton
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It isn't a secret that Magneto has been stealing Professor X out of his bedroom window anymore. It never really was.</p>
            </blockquote>





	my coat pockets, full of stones

**Author's Note:**

> timeline might be weird and i accidentally made alex a bit of a peter whitman.
> 
> title taken from two gallants' "my love won't wait"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm terrified," Alex mutters under his breath. 

Hank glances up from his genetics textbook, the one that Professor X loaned him before the whole paralysis and near-apocalypse crisis. Alex is on the phone, his hip leaning against the kitchen counter, his eyes rolling. He's in his late twenties now, a lot older than the teenage asshole that Hank knew before The Crisis, but he can still catch glimpses of the old Havok.

"Sure. Thanks, Emma," finishes Alex, and hangs up. He rubs a hand over his face and declares, "Okay. Professor X has been mysteriously kidnapped again, and Emma Frost says that Erik is _also_ mysteriously absent from tonight's Brotherhood meeting. You scared?"

"Oh, god," Hank groans.

In the olden days, the staff at Xavier's school would get into a frenzy after the Professor vanished. Now, a kidnapping barely merits enough excitement to change out of pajamas and put on some pants. They even have a routine: Emma calls when she finds out Magneto's gone, Alex half-heartedly attempts to contact the similarity missing Professor, and someone has to make sure the students don't freak out about the Professor's alleged kidnapping. It's really tiring.

"Jesus Christ, next time Erik shows up I'm gonna blast him out of the air." Alex glances at his pajama shorts, the ones he stole from Armando's suitcase over ten years ago and pretends that Hank doesn't remember. "I'll catch you in a minute. Go get some real clothes on and fire up the troops, or whatever."

It isn't a secret that Magneto has been stealing Professor X out of his bedroom window anymore. It never really was. Hank may need to wear glasses but he isn't blind, and his bedroom window faces the Professor's. Once, Erik even levitated some kind of portable music player to his window. They are the most ridiculous couple since Alex and Armando's secret courtship in the 60's, but that was more blatantly corny than bizarre.

"Hey, how about we try not to wake up the kids," Hank says.

"Dude, we always wake up the kids when there's a kidnapping. Or, y'know, when Erik gets horny." 

"We probably don't have to, this time. Everyone's asleep and I don't think any of them will notice. Erik brings him back in the morning anyways." Hank really just wants to stay in his comfortable chair with his cup of tea and not make a fuss. Waking up the students and telling them that their beloved Charles Xavier is gone usually means at least five kids crying and one wanting to hug Hank. Something about being blue and fluffy is oddly enticing to weeping children. Maybe it's his secondary mutation.

Alex shrugs. "Fine by me. Logan's always pissy when I wake him up anyways." 

He makes for the door, and Hank can't restrain himself from calling after him, "Alex, um, are you wearing Angel's perfume?"

"What? No," Alex snaps quickly, even though he absolutely is. Angel had brought three bottles of Guerlain perfume with her- Hank remembers helping her unpack, and remembers how she smelled like it when they would spar together. After she left with Shaw, a memory that still twinges, she'd left the perfume behind and it had vanished. "Okay, maybe a tiny bit, but it's a... sentimental thing. Not a gay thing."

"Just asking." 

Alex has a treasure trove of stolen items in his room, all belonging to the mutants he's met and lost. It started with Armando's death- no one knew how to handle it, and Alex had been completely emotionally wrecked when they'd buried what was left of Armando's body, and then Armando's suitcase vanished. Hank hadn't seen him wear his boyfriend's clothes until after Alex came back from Vietnam, but all of a sudden Alex was wearing Darwin's sweatshirts, his jeans, even his shoes that barely fit. When Hank discovered that Alex sometimes slept with one of Armando's shirts, Alex had punched Hank in the face so hard it nearly broke a tooth. This is why none of the students are allowed inside Professor Summers' private bedroom.

They've come a long way since then, Hank and Alex. Something about losing everyone you know except for a paralysed druggie professor, a blue-skinned former assassin, and a lovesick terrorist does that to people.

For example: Hank has slept with Alex a few times. Not like Alex used to sleep with Armando, you know, _sexually,_ but for comfort. Alex gets night terrors from Vietnam, and from seeing Armando die, and even from losing his little brother all those years ago. Alex doesn't like asking Hank to spend the night with him- he's the most repressed gay man that Hank's ever met- but he sleeps soundly when Hank's next to him. Hank really had never expected any of this to happen when he agreed to go with Charles Xavier in the 60's, but here he is, furry and blue and sleeping next to a hair-trigger plasma blaster. 

There is a small gasping noise from behind his chair, and Hank twists around.

Crouching behind the oven is a small student around the age of eight, and goddamn it, she appears to be sniffling. Hank curses himself silently as he notices the girl's skin, flickering from invisible to visible. He wonders how much she's heard.

"Hi, sweetie," Hank attempts, because he is not great at talking to kids.

"Where's Professor Xavier?" she whispers timidly, eyes wide. "I had a bad dream. He always says to come find him when they happen, but he's gone. Where is he?"

This is the part where Hank is supposed to tell her that Professor Xavier's been captured by the evil terrorist Magneto and he's fighting valiantly and not to worry because he'll win and come back in the morning. Except Hank is tired and doesn't feel like riling up an already sniffly child.

"He's spending a night with an, um, friend," says Hank as soothingly as he can. "You want some ice cream to help with the bad dream?"

Her eyes go wide again, but for a different reason. Hank internally thanks Professor X for keeping the freezer stocked, because he has no idea how to deal with upset children without the help of sugar. 

So they sit side by side at the kitchen table and eat mint chip ice cream, Hank and the little partially invisible girl until she's stopped crying. It's around one in the morning, and Professor X has been gone for about two hours, but no one's assumed his absence means war against mutantkind or woken up Logan, so everything's okay. Hank is sleepy from two hours of reading up on human genetics despite the sugar, and he pats the girl on her half-visible shoulder. "Time for bed, okay?"

He ends up carrying her up to her room because she likes how soft his fur is. Hank keeps himself very clean.

As he's walking away from her room and towards his own, a door opens across the corridor and Alex pokes his head out. "Hey. Beast. Can you, um, come in here for a sec?"

Alex's eyes are red and his soft blonde hair's a mess, like he's either been smoking Sean's old pot stash or just had another nightmare. Hank is willing to bet it's the latter. Alex got his hair all buzzed off in Vietnam, and he hasn't let anyone cut it since. 

Hank nods, and Alex lets him inside. Alex's room is a mess, full of boxes of stolen memorabilia that spill over the sides onto the floor. Hank carefully steps over someone's dog tags- he doesn't want to know how Alex got those- and sits on the edge of Alex's unmade bed. Out the window, Hank can see the expansive black sky dotted with stars. The moon is full.

"Bad dream?" Hank asks.

"Kinda." Alex shrugs. He is shirtless and wearing his army fatigues as pajama pants.

"About Scott? Like last week?"

He shakes his head and glances out at the sky. "Darwin. From when Shaw came."

Hank nods.

They get into bed, Alex laying on one side of the queen mattress, Hank on the other. They barely touch. Hank's fur brushes up gently against Alex's chest as he shifts to stare out of the window.

"I'm sorry about Darwin," says Hank, because it's what he always says when Alex has a night terror. _I'm sorry you can't find your brother. I'm sorry you had to watch people die in Vietnam. I'm sorry we lost everyone we loved._

"It's been, like, ten years," responds Alex softly, angrily. "I dreamed about him the entire time I was in 'Nam. I thought I was done with these goddamn-"

He inhales sharply. Alex doesn't let himself cry, not even around Hank. It breaks Hank's heart a little bit.

Alex was kind of an asshole to him when they were teenagers, before Hank was blue, before Charles and Erik split up and became Professor X and Magneto, before everyone fucking died. Alex called him names and mocked his hand-feet in front of Raven and basically acted like every jock douche that Hank knew in high school. It's a lot different now.

Hank doesn't know what else to say. Everything is so messy now.

"Oh shit," he hears himself say, and he shoves Alex.

Alex's head jerks up and turns towards the window, where Hank is pointing. He snorts out a laugh. "Holy fuck, is that them?"

There is a figure, small but quite clearly clothed in a cape, floating through the air towards the Xavier mansion. It appears to be holding another figure in its arms, bridal style, and carrying it towards one of the mansion's open windows across from Alex's window.

"That's Erik," laughs Alex disbelievingly. "Jesus Christ, he's a fucking exhibisionist."

"He's holding Charles like a baby, I can't believe he's letting him do that."

"God. They need to control themselves, it's like being in the sixties all over again."

"You remember how disgusting they were around each other, back when Charles had his legs? I think Raven wanted to kill them."

"I wanted to kill them. They had sex in my lab."

"Holy shit, Beast, for real?"

"For real."

They sit together silently in Alex's bed, watching Magneto float up to Professor X's open window and deposit him gently inside. The sky is dark, the stars are bright, and the moon is casting white light over the mansion grounds and Magneto's ridiculous cape. It makes a surreal and somehow beautiful picture.

"I dunno about you, but I'm going to bed," Alex says after a while, his voice heavy with fatigue. "And in the morning I'm just gonna pretend this never happened."

"That sounds like a really good idea. I don't want to think about where they went."

"Probably some weird nightclub for mutant terrorists." Alex yawns. "Or maybe they were really gross and had an actual date, like normal people do."

"Like a candlelit dinner." The image makes him grin sleepily. 

"God, those assholes are weird."

Silence. Hank wonders if Alex is asleep or not, and he says quietly, "I'm sorry about Darwin."

There is a long pause, and Alex finally replies with, "Thanks, Hank."

The silence stretches on and on until Hank hears Alex's breathing slow down and even out. Despite being exhausted himself, Hank waits for Alex to drop into a calm, dreamless sleep, one arm curled around Hank's soft blue middle.


End file.
